The Kebab & Calculator

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  • #72144
    Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent

    @winston    Every few years, (most recently about two months ago), I eat something I shouldn’t and get hit by the bug.    It tends to flatten me, I end up with nothing in my stomach and so weak I can barely sit up, and with no appetite for food.   I make the effort(!) to eat chocolate or chocolate biscuits, anything easy to eat and get some sugar into my system since sugar is easily absorbed energy.   After a couple of days flat on my back, recovery is usually quite rapid.

    It sounds as if your son had a worse dose of it than I did.   But if he’s eating well I’d guess he’s over it.

    #72145
    nerys @nerys

    @winston Re: turning the recalcitrant non-Whovians in your family: Interestingly enough, my husband (who is nine years younger than me) is the longtime Doctor Who fan. He started watching in his youth, during the Tom Baker era, and so he was the one who marked the calendar to make sure he didn’t miss the premiere of the relaunched series. I reluctantly gave in because … well, that was what he was watching. From that first scene of Chris Eccleston’s Doctor with Rose, I was hooked. And now I am the committed viewer!

    It’s wonderful news that your son has made such a good recovery from what was a very scary situation. Like @dentarthurdent, I am rather the canary in the coal mine in our household, when it comes to eating anything sketchy. It doesn’t always lay me flat, but my husband and I can eat exactly the same thing, and I’m the one who’s paying for it later on. Just the way my digestive system is.

    #72146
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @thane16

    Greetings Puro.  Forgive me if I find your account of that episode funny, in a blackish sort of way. That hospital sounds to have been gruesome; one a par with the one in which I was born, six years before the inception of the NHS.

    My poor mother was not to know. She was new to the area and, of the two hospitals in Halifax (Yorkshire, not NS), she selected the one she passed every day on her way to work, which was a pleasant looking building surrounded by well kept gardens. Appearances were deceptive; it was the former workhouse hospital, and the attitudes of the staff had not much changed. I won’t say that her experience was medieval: in the medieval period she would almost certainly been attended by a midwife and/or family members; maybe Dickensian would be a more apt comparison.

    After being given an enema *and* a massive dose of castor oil (with predictable results) she was left all day in a room on her own, yelled at when she did finally call a nurse, and when someone eventually did look in on her late in the evening, at a point when things had got critical, she was yelled at again. It’s a wonder that a) I was born intact and healthy and b) that she didn’t immediately go off me and reject me as the cause of all that misery.

    At the end of all this she got a brief glimpse of me before I was whisked away to the nursery, and she was transferred to the maternity ward, where she was left to shiver all night under a single blanket (October in the Pennines and no heating to speak of), not daring to ask for another. And was then yelled at again by the nurses, after the Matron (an uber-dragon among a dragon breed) had been on her morning round of inspection and given them a dressing-down about the same insufficiency of blankets.

    I can well understand your mother fainting in those circumstances, and glad that there was a supply of slivovice to bring to the rescue. My experience of hospitals has been fairly extensive, although nothing to compare with yours, but my mother also had to endure a good many alarms and excursions – more than I really appreciated at the time – but when, three weeks into my first term at Edinburgh University I was whisked into the Infirmary there, she was similarly incarcerated in Norwich, after the latest spinal crunch. We ended up corresponding (no mobile phones in the Neolithic period), each more worried about the other or – as my mother put it, more lepidopterous.

    As you say, human contact and human warmth is of the utmost importance in such circumstances, but maybe I have been particularly fortunate, because there have always been friends and/or family to supply it – especially that time in Edinburgh, when new friends as well as business contacts of my father’s were in frequent attendance, distant friends and even my old school teachers wrote and, although my mother couldn’t be there, my father did trek up from darkest East Anglia to hold my hand, and the nurses, to a woman, spoiled me atrociously.

    I apologise for having been AWOL so long, but it’s been a difficult year. I have been lurking, however, and reading fairly attentively, and things here seem to be looking up.

    And there are, after all, deer in the deer park in Mudlark manor; muntjac to be precise. A mixed blessing, because they do tend to go in for unauthorised pruning.

     

    #72147
    syzygy @thane16

    @mudlark helloooo & welcome back!! And there are deer….😊

    if bells, trombones, trumpets & timpani don’t accompany this it’s out of respect for your mother’s gruesome situation….

    But yes, absolutely, my experiences were funny, in their way. My mother kept up a steady dose of humour throughout this incarceration, for as important as the bone broth, cheesecakes & cassette tapes were (no private, portable CD players then) so was laughter & friendly nurses.

    Mum astounded me with her knowledge of the nurse’s children or their husband’s antics – not just out of genuine interest but because she valued their usefulness- “if I make them a cuppa, this will invariably get back to Pete at the car park & he’ll validate my ticket for the week at the cheaper rate.”

    This was new behaviour…possibly wrangling with Czech women in bread queues caused a sunny outlook combined with the sly. Or at least mischievous. Certainly she responded to any weakness or reluctance on my part to keep going with steely resolve manifesting physically as a slap on the face -the latter betraying her real fear I’d given up completely.

    But your mother’s frustration & anxiety would have been awful – the lack of warmth & stentorian barking unforgivable.

    I found – & this might be your experience & your mother’s -that some nurses were drawn to the profession as they could exert control & quiet viciousness, however unethical, because vulnerable people will remain meek & quiescent to avoid abuse & the hypervigilance of a nurse-breed which hollers when a portion of blanket is an inch away from kissing her newly mopped floors….

    Yes, I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering how the Manor is progressing & I’m so sorry to hear it’s been a difficult & problematic year, Mudlark.

    With love, Puro & the Mad Household.

    #72148
    Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent

    I’ll keep my comment brief – my limited experience of hospitals has been quite positive. Maybe I’ve been lucky. Never encountered any criticism, not even when A&E was plastering my face up after a homemade firework exploded like an incendiary (and some harsh words would have been fully merited, even if superfluous). My one long stay, just a week for a heart operation, was actually very pleasant (of course I know nothing of the op itself). Just being able to lie on my back, pleasantly relaxed by painkillers, and do nothing, (without the usual nagging feeling that I really should be doing something productive), in a warm, bright, comfortable room, was very pleasant indeed. (To my surprise, after being sawn open down the front (because how else would they get in? – it had never occurred to me to wonder before) the painkillers were morphine the first night, methadone the next, then – just paracetamol! I had never realised how effective paracetamol is).

    I did take a couple of books (which I was too dozy to read) and a portable CD player with a couple of CD’s – mostly Rod Stewart, I’m slightly embarrassed to admit (this must have been before I rediscovered Pink Floyd). I only had a couple of visitors, a couple of guys from work called in, which I appreciated, but that was all I needed, visitors were actually a slight mental effort and I was enjoying being lazy.

    The biggest hassle was weekly blood tests to calibrate the rat poison for the next six months.   I’m not good with needles and I was more apprehensive of those than I had been of the operation itself.   Weird, I know.

    #72149
    winston @winston

    @thane16    dentarthurdent and @janetteb   Thanks for the warm thoughts, the lad looks better every day and will soon be trying to leave us. Next weekend is our Thanksgiving holiday so I am keeping him here until then. Some turkey and pumpkin pie should top him up nicely.

    @nerys  I have the two youngest on Team Tardis with me so we out number Team Dalek 3 to 2. They will watch the show but they don’t LOVE the show and that s the difference. But we keep trying to turn them from the dark side to the blue side.

    @mudlark   It is so nice to see you back. I hope things keep looking up for you.

    Stay safe

     

    #72170
    nerys @nerys

    @thane16 and @mudlark These hospital experiences you describe are jaw-dropping. I never imagined that, in this “modern” day and age, such things could happen. Like @dentarthurdent, I am very fortunate in that regard. I’ve had very few hospital stays, and now I appreciate the kindness and care I received all the more!

    #72171
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @nerys

    To be fair, the Fatal Natal Day, as it came to be known, was 79 years ago (less 11 days), in the middle of the war and, as I said, several years before the NHS came into being; and the regime in hospitals at that time tended to be more authoritarian and strictly regimented than it is now. Nor, I think, was that hospital necessarily typical; it had something of a reputation locally, as my mother subsequently discovered. No. 1 brother was born in the other hospital in Halifax, and her experience there was much better.

    My experience of hospitals has been fairly extensive and varied: (counts on fingers and toes) 13 stays of up to 6 weeks, plus numerous day procedures, and it has all has been pretty good on the whole. The grimmest was probably the Royal London Hospital, and even that was not too bad. The best in some ways was the time in Edinburgh which I mentioned. For some reason female students were housed in the small ward reserved for nurses and attached to the Nurses Residence and, since for much of the time I was the only seriously ill patient there, the staff had little to do except dance attendance on me. The food was good, too, and served in style. Afternoon tea, for example, was served on a tray covered with a dainty cloth, with a full porcelain tea service, little sandwiches, and scones or cake. Come to think of it, that may account for why I got so many visitors around that time in the afternoon 🙂

    *If you have ever watched ‘Call The Midwife’, the London Hospital is featured in several of the episodes set in the later 1950s, I was there a couple of times c.1958/59, and can vouch for the fact that at least the nurses’ uniforms are authentic for the period.

    #72177
    nerys @nerys

    @mudlark I have watched precisely one episode of Call the Midwife … and it was because I was staying at my mom’s home, and she and her partner were watching it. But I know what you mean. It recalls a time when such harrowing experiences were far more common in hospitals. It’s just the way it was. Yet, in this day and age, it’s still startling to read or hear about.

    My one and only sustained hospital stay, due to major surgery, was remarkably good. The food was good (says no one, ever). And my care was excellent. The hard part was (and I apologize; this is not polite dinner conversation) working my way through the days, with much pacing up and down the hallway, to when I could finally relieve my abdominal bloating. How do you spell relief? B-M!

    By the way: Has anyone seen the new Bond film? We went to see it Friday night. All I can say is … wow! I was not expecting that. I will say no more, as I don’t want to spoil it for anyone.

    #72180
    Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent

    @nerys     Odd you should mention Bond.   I’ll get to the new Bond in due course, (thanks for not spoiling it!), but in the course of trying to tidy up my den, I rationalised my DVD’s, earmarked a few duplicates for disposal, and decided to complete my Bond collection (now DVD’s are fairly cheap).   So last night I re-watched Goldeneye (just got the 2-disc edition).  One of my favourites – Pierce Brosnan was the best Bond IMO, and Natalya Simonova one of the best ‘Bond girls’.   And their intro stunt, the bungee jump off Verzasca dam, set a world record at the time.   And the next movie – Tomorrow Never Dies – was equally good, Michelle Yeoh was great, and I think Jonathan Pryce was the best villain ever – there’s just something about his delivery that makes you think he’s on the edge of losing it completely at any moment.

    #72181
    Cath Annabel @cathannabel

    Hello, fellow Whovians. I haven’t said much here for quite a while, for a host of reasons. I wanted to tell you, though, that my lovely husband, with whom I shared my own passion for Who since our teens, died very suddenly (I know it’s always sudden…) on Saturday morning, completely unexpectedly and we are devastated and shell shocked. We are beginning to plan the funeral (it will be a humanist, music-focused event) and were thinking about a secular equivalent of the traditional Bible readings – if any of you can suggest suitable Who quotes, that would be lovely. He won’t be wearing a suit – a King Crimson t-shirt, we think, possibly with the v v long Fourth Doctor scarf that my Mum knitted him so very many years ago. I’m so sad, amongst all of the desperately sad things, that he won’t see the next series, or the new Doctor…

    #72183
    TwelveIsMyDoctor @twelveismydoctor

    @cathannabel I am so very, very sorry for your loss.

    #72184
    janetteB @janetteb

    @mudlark Your story reminds me of the worst hospital experience i ever had was in London. I don’t know which hospital. I thought it was in the area of Marble Arch but can’t work it out from Google. I was rather ill at the time so perhaps my sense of location was as fuzzy as my memory is now. I spent a couple of hours in an overcrowded waiting room. there was only one Doctor on duty and the poor man looked exhausted. He apologised profusely for the wait and looked rather relieved when I assured him that I blamed Thatcher for the evident understaffing. Fortunately all i needed was a script for antibiotics and a couple of days resting in the grubby little guest house I was staying in.

    My most memorable hospital stay was in Sweden which surely has one of the best public health systems in the world. I owe my life to that hospital and its wonderful staff. My stay there also gave me an insight into the country and culture that I would otherwise have missed out on so some good came out of a rather serious situation.

    Cheers

    Janette

     

    #72185
    blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave

    @cathannabel My deepest commiserations. One Doctor quote that comes to mind–which I think of as relevant to all of us–is from “Vincent and the Doctor”:

    The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things…and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant. And we definitely added to his pile of good things.

    Take care.

    #72190
    janetteB @janetteb

    @cathannabel I am so sorry to hear. I will think about something. Many years ago as an honours subject we put together a book of secular readings for “rites of passage” occasions. I have often thought of revisiting that as there is an increasing need for it. I love the idea of something from Dr Who. Maybe something from the Capaldi era or the second Doctor talking to Victoria about loosing her father in Tomb of the Cybermen. I don’t fully recall the wording so not entirely sure how suitable that would be.

    Best of wishes through this difficult time.

    Regards

    Janette

     

    #72191
    Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent

    @cathannabel   You have my sympathy too.   If I can call any suitable words to mind I’ll certainly post them.

    @janetteb   If you’re ever looking for some wording, the whole of Doctor Who is up on Chrissie’s Transcripts Site at http://www.chakoteya.net/index.html  – it’s an awesome resource.    For example Tomb of the Cybermen is here:   http://www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/5-1.htm

    And if you can’t remember which episode a quote came from, I’ve just discovered the index page has links to two search engines that search the entire transcripts in a flash.

    (Disclaimer: I have no connection with that site other than as a frequent user).

     

    #72192
    Missy @missy

    @cathannabel

    I never know what to say at a time like this.

    My husband (who didn’t share my love of the Doctor, but watched them anyway) died after five months of diagnosis.

    That was bad enough, but suddenly, for no reason? I really feel for you my dear.

    Sorry I cannot think of any quote that would be appropriate except possibly:

    “Everything ends.
    And it’s always sad.
    But everything begins again too,
    and that’s always happy.
    Be happy.”

    @thane16>

    This is for you too. Your mum was a joy to chat to.

    Missy

    #72194
    Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent

    @cathannabel

    I’ve been trying to think of a suitable passage. You’d think, with all its mighty storylines, Who should be full of them. Trouble is, almost all those marvellous lines were very story-specific.

    I did like the quote Winston chose for an avatar – We’re all stories in the end. (from The Big Bang). But I’m really not sure whether any part of that speech would be suitable.

    I like the way this was echoed in Hell Bent –
    CLARA: Is this a story or did this really happen?
    DOCTOR: Every story ever told really happened. Stories are where memories go when they’re forgotten.
    and later
    CLARA: You said memories become stories when we forget them. Maybe some of them become songs.

    – but again, I really don’t know how any of that would fit.

     

    #72201
    Whisht @whisht

    @cathannabel I am so so sorry for your loss.

    I can’t add any appropriate quotes nor music.
    But all I can say is that I hope you realise that there are far more people than reply who are feeling for you right now.

    Sometimes posts are read.
    Sometimes plans are made to answer.
    Sometimes plans don’t actually happen.

    But the feeling, the true honest wanting to reach out and comfort and listen and be there happens, even if its not written.
    My condolences and I can’t speak for others but there will be others who are giving you the same

    #72202
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @cathannabel

    So very sorry to read your sad news and, like others here, offer my sympathy and condolences in your devastating loss.

    A funeral should, ideally, be the celebration of a life, and in that context quotations from or references to the Doctor, the epitome of all that is life affirming and humane, are a lovely idea. I am rubbish at remembering verbatim quotes, but can endorse the recommendation by @dentarthurdent of the transcripts at http://www.chakoteya.net , which have have found an invaluable resource.

    #72203
    winston @winston

    @cathannabel     I am so sorry for your loss and like others here I wish I knew what to say at a time like this.

    There is never enough time to be with our loved ones and we always want more.That is when we all wish we had a time machine. One more day or hour or minute to be with them. It will take time to heal and when that starts you will be able to remember all the good times, bad times and precious moments you spent together. In time you will smile again when you think of him and he will always be with you.

    We share the love of a character, who whizzes through time, with so many, including your husband, and I think it is lovely that you include this love in his celebration. My thoughts are with you.

     

    #72212
    Cath Annabel @cathannabel

    Thank you all, for your kind words, your Who quotes, and your warmth & love. I have always believed that the internet has the potential to be a place of safety and comfort, where complete strangers can connect with each other in ways that help and heal. I have seen and felt that in the last few days. It is real and it does help. Love, Cath

    #72213
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    @cathannabel

    So sorry to hear your news. I think I’d also go with the ‘good things’ quote from Vincent and the Doctor. Again, my deepest condolences and thinking of you and your loss.

    #72220
    nerys @nerys

    @cathannabel I am so sorry to see this news today. Like others, I wish I knew what to say at this heartbreaking time. I can only imagine the shock and grief you are experiencing at the unexpected loss of your husband. I’m glad that the kindness you are feeling from so many here, and out there, too, is helping. It can’t hold you in your husband’s warm embrace, or recapture the relationship you and he had. But maybe it helps to ease the harshness of (yet another) new reality.

    #72221
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @cathannabel

    So sorry to hear of your loss.

    I can’t think of any quotes, but the whole ethos of Who is that every second of time is eternal. Whatever memory you can think of, whatever event, the people we love will always be still living, there, in that moment.

    We can’t meet them there again, because we don’t have a TARDIS, but that period between their birth and their death always has existed and always will exist.

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